As an observer and commentator on foreign policy, this article was a good reading. Glad to see democracy at works in India. The state's safeguard their interests vigorously. A sign of freedom and local governance.

Our systems, meaning the US and Indian systems are demonstrating more common elements.

On an odd note, when I see Jay Lalitha, I think of the movie Izzat with Dharmendra, I was not a witness to her role in politics as I have been out of India since 1977. Here is a song, you may enjoy, if our kids in America see this, they can't believe men chase and harass women in India, of course it is in the movies only. Has any one of you ever sang a song to a girl who is not engaged to you yet? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRCEjkhWTo8

By Bharat Bhushan Analyst

Ms Banerjee and Mrs Clinton met
for nearly one hour on Monday

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit to Calcutta to meet the West
Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was not just one successful woman
politician on Time magazine's Power List paying a courtesy call to another.

US secretaries of state are not known to waste time promoting sisterhood
unless it serves American interests. In July 2011, Mrs Clinton paid a similar
visit to J Jayalalithaa, the chief minister of Tamil Nadu.In both instances, crucial foreign policy issues were on the agenda.

Ms Banerjee has claimed that Mrs Clinton did not raise the issue of water
sharing between India and Bangladesh on the Teesta river or foreign direct
investment (FDI) in multi-brand retail in their meeting.However, the US secretary of state had made her views on the twin issues very
clear in a televised public interview in Calcutta a day earlier.

She was not unaware that the two initiatives of the Delhi government had been
scuttled by West Bengal's chief minister. Ms Banerjee is also the head of the
Trinamool Congress party, a key ally of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's
coalition.

Weak centre
With the Tamil Nadu chief minister last July, Mrs Clinton had also discussed
a foreign policy issue - finding ways of putting pressure on Colombo for the
rehabilitation of Sri Lankan Tamils displaced by the war against the Tamil
Tigers.

The Americans seem to have recognised that certain foreign policy issues
cannot be pushed with a weak central government in Delhi alone.

“Start Quote

It is the prime minister's job to push the policies of his government and not
that of the foreign minister of another country”

End
Quote

They can see that there are domestic political compulsions which affect
Indian foreign policy and sometimes they may require massaging the egos of
regional satraps to push it in the desired direction.There are other instances of how foreign policy issues get shaped by the
local agendas of certain states or regional political leaders.

The Tamil Nadu cabinet passed a resolution against restarting work on the
Koodankulam nuclear power plant - stalled by anti-nuclear protesters - knowing
full well that it would impact on Indo-Russian relations. Later, Chief Minister Jayalalithaa was persuaded to change her stance. The
price she is believed to have extracted was to get India to vote against Sri
Lanka at the UN Human Rights Commission on the Tamil rights issue.

Regional Tamil party DMK, a coalition partner of the central government, also
pushed Delhi to vote with the US on the Sri Lanka resolution - although up to
then India had always made a virtue of not voting on any country-specific UN
resolution.

Up north, the Jammu and Kashmir state legislature of Indian-administered
Kashmir occasionally discusses walking out of the Indus Water Treaty with
Pakistan as some Kashmiris consider it an unfair treaty.These are instances where the states have had to be brought on board on
issues which impinge on India's relationship with foreign countries.

Up to a decade ago, these would have been seen strictly in the domain of the
central government. After all, the Indian constitution places foreign affairs -
defined as "all matters which bring the Union into relations with any foreign
country" - in the Union List, meaning states can exercise no power over it.That does not seem to be the case any longer.'Ham-handed US'

One cannot draw an unequivocal conclusion that all foreign policy is being
hobbled by the states as there is a large domain of foreign policy which
continues to be pursued by the centre without any state opposition.

However, it is equally true that when a foreign policy issue affects a
state's interests, especially where it undermines the strong ideological
positions of a regional party in power, the centre can no longer afford to
ignore their views.

However, what happens when foreign powers start making tentative approaches
to the regional leaders directly?

The Teesta water sharing treaty and FDI in multi-brand retail are not issues
that specifically refer to US interests.

FDI in multi-brand retail is not solely an Indo-US issue - there are a number
of European countries which are also waiting for the policy change.

If the head of Walmart or Carrefour were to meet officials from the
Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) or the Federation of Indian Chambers of
Commerce and Industry (FICCI) on the issue, nobody would object.

However, if the US secretary of state starts leveraging her weight to ram the
door open for FDI in multi-brand retail, then even those who think it is a
genuinely good idea will stop favouring it. Ham-handed US diplomacy in this case
is likely to be counter-productive.

If Americans blatantly push their agenda on FDI in multi-brand retail with
West Bengal, they also stand in danger of being seen as disregarding the
constitutional distribution of powers between the centre and the states in
India; and undermining the position of the Indian prime minister.

It is the prime minister's job to push the policies of his government and not
that of the foreign minister of another country.

The inability of the centre to push its foreign policy or economic agendas
reflects its incompetence in handling its allies and other regional parties.

However, that is a domestic matter and does not justify tolerating foreign
forays in India's internal affairs - even if these have foreign policy
implications.

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Indian Heroes

Patriotism

Upright Beauracrats

Community information

REAL ESTATE IN INDIA

INDIAN HEROES

These are the men and women from among Hindus, Dalits, Adivasis, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Jains, Buddhists, Zoroastrians, Jews, and other traditions that are deeply committed to the idea of One India and one people acknowledging the uniqueness of each one of the Indians.

Their work brings people together, their effort is to restore harmony among Indians unlike some lost souls who are hell bent on pitting one Indian against the other.

Lord Krishna had said, whenever the negative forces become stronger in dividing families and disrupt peace and harmony, he will emerge among them to restore sanity, the same idea is reflected in Quran, that God does not deprive his goodness to anyone and sends a peacemaker to every community and nation. After the founding fathers of the nation, these are our real heroes restoring dharma – the righteousness. Dharma is when people get along, mind their own business, live their lives and let others live theirs. God has created all of us and respects each one of us is the highest form of worship.

I salute them for their work and they come from all walks of life. They see you as an Indian and nothing but an Indian. They believe every human should be free to eat, drink, wear or believe whatever he or she wants in the pursuit of their happiness.

Please share stories of such Indians who have made efforts to build a cohesive India, an India where no Indian lives in apprehension, tension or fear of the other.

INDIAN HEROES - NEW FROM 12/20/17

PATRIOTISM

Two of India’s dangerous trends: Misplaced Patriotism and intolerance towards different points of view.

The real heroes of India are those who relentlessly “criticize” the government because they do not want their government to falter and make decisions that will mess up the social structure of the nation. They keep the government rascals on their toes. After all, they are elected to serve us not the other way around. The real heroes rise the nation for the common good of all.

What do the Chamchas on the other hand do? They wear a false badge of patriotism and to them patriotism is oppression of those who differ, and war mongering. They cannot handle criticism of government, they are yes sir, yes sir I lick your chappals. They bring down the nation by keeping their man at helm in a bubble giving him or her false assurance that everything is alright.

I hope the Prime Minister wises up and invites and honors those who criticize him, they are the real supporters of him by reminding him from falling into the pit. He should welcome all those who criticize. He needs to defend the rights of such heroes. The Indian Citizens on the other hand need to make a conscious effort to support those who criticize the government, BJP or Congress or any one.

The test of a successful civilized nation is when every man and woman of India can breathe, eat, drink, wear and believe whatever the hell she or he wants to believe.

UPRIGHT BUREAUCRATS

These are the public service heroes; officers who go against their political bosses to do the right thing for India, i.e, every Indian. We will be developing the list as we go forward. You can send in your entries to MikeGhouseforIndia@gmail.com

UPRIGHT BUREAUCRATS

ABOUT MIKE GHOUSE

Mike Ghouse is committed to his life mission of building cohesive work places, communities and nations. His work is for the Indians and Americans where each one of the 322 million Americans should feel secure without apprehension or fear of the other.

He is one of the 5 people in the world who is actively pursuing research, activism and teaching the subject of Pluralism. Just Google and find a tremendous amount of work on pluralism in religion, politics, society and culture. Mike defines Pluralism as an attitude of “respecting the otherness of other” and accepting the God-given uniqueness of each one of us.

He is a pluralist, thinker, writer, activist and a speaker on Pluralism, Interfaith, politics, Islam, human rights and foreign policy including India and Israel-Palestine. He is a news maker, interfaith wedding officiant and a community consultant and offers pluralistic solutions on issues of the day.

Dr. Ghouse has appeared in over 300 National TV shows and is a frequent guest with Hannity and Varney shows at Fox News along with others. He has over 1000 hours of Radio Shows of which 700 were dedicated to interfaith and pluralism. Over 3500 articles have been published of which a 1000 were on politics, foreign policy, sports and movies, a 1500 for interfaith and pluralism matters and a 1000 plus on Islam. In addition Mike has conducted workshops on Atheist to Zoroastrian and every one in between.

Mike is committed to building cohesive societies and offers pluralistic solutions on issues of the day. His work is at www.Centerforpluralism.com and www.WorldMuslimCongress.org

Welcome

We are proud of our heritage - a multi-faith, multi-cultural, multi-regional and multi-linguistic society, where we have come to accept and respect every which way people have lived their lives. For over 5000 years, India has been a beacon of pluralism - it has embraced Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Baha’i and Zoroastrianism to include in the array of the indigenous religions; Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism. India led the way to the freedom movement, since 1947 every country has been liberated from colonialism. Indian democracy is a shining example to the world, where the people have peacefully transferred the powers. Indians are inherently secular and economically capitalistic. They believe in "live-and-let-live" life style, which is the essence of capitalism.Through the years we have expressed the highest degree of maturity on handling extreme situations; the more divergent opinions we hear, the larger our heart grows, the bigger our embrace would be and we can cushion more differences. Let’s continue to honor the concept that there is always another side to the story, as finding the truth is our own responsibility.I am proud of my heritage and am proud to be an Indian-American. Please join me in the discovery of India on a daily basis, as time permits and share the wealth of knowledge you have on this forum.

DallasIndians@yahoogroups.com is the information exchange center for the Indian community living in the Dallas/ Fort Worth Metroplex. You can join by sending an email to: DallasIndians-Subscribe@yahoogroups.com